Falling off a cliff in Ireland

My friends don’t know why I love heights so much. Especially after this story.

Most people know what Giant’s Causeway is. For those of you who don’t know your Gaelic geography, it’s a bunch of funny-looking rocks on the coast of Northern Ireland. It looks nifty enough, but the National Trust has turned it into a clichéd tourist magnet.

I visited in August 2009 and loved it. I hate tourists, though, and there were a thousand of them crawling over the rocks and taking pictures of their bored children. I hiked to the top of the cliffs to get away from the masses (and to catch a glimpse of Scotland in the distance). The trail at the top forked in two directions — to my right was the visitor center and the bus to Belfast. To the left, the path snaked along the edge of the cliff into the horizon.

There was nobody walking on the path to the left, so I pulled a Robert Frost and took the one less traveled by.

Let me tell you something if you ever go to Northern Ireland. If you have any appreciation for the sublime, walk along these cliffs. After about two miles, I couldn’t see a single person around me. I spotted a town in the distance and random farms inland, but I was completely alone for the first time since I’d landed in Dublin.

I spun around like an idiot and sucked in the glorious solitude. I’d been sleeping in hostels and riding in buses for a week and the silence was heavenly. I heard only seabirds singing to each other and waves slapping against the rocky coastline. And then I saw it.

A raincloud had formed in the distant countryside. I kept walking along the cliffs, but the cloud moved closer every time I glanced back at it.

I walked faster.

It moved closer.

It finally caught up to me. I was several miles away from the visitor center and the next village was about an hour’s walk away. I didn’t want to get wet, but it’s inevitable in Ireland. The rain looked incredible, though — as it closed in on me, I could see the sheet of rain pummel the cliffs and drench the luscious Irish landscape. I took a picture of it about three seconds before it hit me:

And then Hell broke loose and unleashed its cold, wet fury on me. Massive raindrops hit me like bullets. The temperature dropped twenty degrees. And the wind! The wind took me by surprise and pushed me to the edge of the cliff.

“Shit!”

My feet were at the edge and the wind was whipping around me. I flailed wildly and fell backward onto the soaked, freezing ground. I threw my backpack on the ground and opened up the main pocket, trying (and failing) to protect it from the onslaught of the rain. I pulled out the rain poncho that an Australian girl at my hostel had given to me that morning. My mind flitted back to our conversation:

Aussie girl: “Where’s your jacket? It’s going to rain today, you idiot!”

Jake: “Psh.. I don’t need a jacket.”

Aussie girl: “Here, take this or you’ll get sick and die.”

Jake: “Thanks, but I won’t use it.”

I had even scheduled to meet up with her in Dublin, just to return it and prove that I didn’t need a poncho.

I pulled out the poncho, threw on my backpack, and started walking back to the visitor center. The rain had been hitting me for about fifteen seconds but I was already soaked. I opened up the poncho and it immediately turned into a parachute. It flew around violently in my hands as I tried to pull it over my head. When I finally managed to get it around my neck, the front and back (which were unconnected) flew into my face.

Imagine the situation for a second. I’m soaking wet, walking along a 200-foot cliff, and blinded by a possessed poncho. I tried to button the two sides together for a solid five minutes before giving up and just grabbing them and holding the poncho to my sides. I kicked into a jog, but my arms were busy holding down the poncho, so it looked more like a penguin waddle.

I was waddling pretty fast by the time I reached the top of a small hill. I was still near the edge of the cliff, but the ground sloped downward for about thirty feet. It was completely insignificant when I walked through it earlier, but the rain had turned a tiny little hill into a ridiculously slippery mudslide of death.

Momentum makes it hard to stop running. Mud makes it hard to stop running. Going downhill makes it hard to stop running. The three of these combined make it impossible to stop running.

The fall didn’t last longer than two seconds, but I had enough time to pray to Jesus, Allah, Brahma, and Yahweh all at once. My foot slipped backward into the mud and tumbled down the hill. I rolled over twice and ended up on my back, staring into the stinging rain. I lifted my head and looked around me. I had rolled off the path and was lying on the grass at the edge of the cliff.

Have you ever been on the edge of a bunk bed and been too scared to move because you’re barely on the mattress? Imagine that, but with rocks and an ocean 200 feet beneath you.

After summarily thanking the aforementioned deities, I crabwalked back to the path and stood up. As soon as I did this, the God(s) decided to mess with me even more and the rain stopped. Immediately. It went from a torrential, hellish monsoon to warm sunlight within five seconds. I had no idea why it did that, but I was going to capitalize on my stroke of luck before the rain could come back. I ripped off the poncho and ran the rest of the way to the visitor’s center.

So what’s the moral of the story? I bought a sandwich and a cup of tea when I got back to the visitor’s center. Never in my life have I had a better meal. Sure, I had almost fallen off a cliff. I was traveling alone, so nobody would have noticed until I missed my flight a week later. I was covered in mud and shivering from the cold. The tourists at the visitor center probably thought that I was homeless. But I slept like a baby that night and laughed like an infant when my roommate complained about almost missing his taxi the next morning.

Life wouldn’t be so delicious if it didn’t try to kill us every once in awhile.